Matt Mauldin

That’s right, it’s been way too long since my last post.  What have I been doing? Well, my last actual post was near the end of September, and since then I have

1. Changed jobs
2. Built & launched 3 WordPress blogs and 2 Magento stores.
3. Working on a rebuild of 2 ecommerce sites I own & building a brand new ecommerce store for a great domain I picked up.
4. Incorporated my business and built a corporate site for that.
5. Managed a ton of advertising spend for my clients
6. And a spent a ton of time with my family – both happy and sad situations.

But MattMauldin.com has been neglected.  The first nine months of 2009 went pretty well, and I like writing because it keeps me on the lookout for interesting topics when I would otherwise be playing Brickbreaker on the Blackberry.  Even my twitter account was quiet.

Here are a few New Year’s Resolutions I have for MattMauldin.com:

• On good post per month – “good” is subjective and the only point of view that counts is mine.
• 5 tweets per week minimum – because a list of tweets are posted here weekly, as you can tell for the previous several pages.
• Finish the Wheel of Time posts by Spring – This post topic was leading up to A Memory of Light (see here), but I didn’t complete all the posts. I did, however, read all the books (yay for me).
• Updates on MattMauldin.com – Find a replacement plugin for Simple Tags unless it is updated in the next week or so because it doesn’t work with WP 2.9; and find a replacement plugin for Twitter Tools because it skips weeks or double posts for a single week.  Any suggestions?
• Begin sharing a little more about items 1 through 5 above.  Sorry, #6 is all mine.

OK, now the goals are specific, written, and measurable.  We’ll see how they go.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Smallville’s Clark Kent is a weeny.  He’s such a weeny that we should call the show “Weenyville”

Tonight was supposed to be the season finale.    Instead it was a weenyfest.  This episode single-handedly destroyed the entire show for me.  Just a coincident that it was titles Doomsday… or is it?  Instead of a season capping finale, this was the dumbest, most idiotic, non-exciting episode ever. Bottom line: Clark is a weeny.

Important: From here on out there are spoilers, but the show has taken such a downturn this season that they can hardly be called spoilers.

Predictable Plot

Every freakin episode has the same story:

• some baddie either puts either the entire world or one of Clark’s friends (swap them out) in danger.
• Clark tried to save them but gets trapped by kryptonite.
• Some wuss saves Clark
• Clark pulls off some 8-year-old-in-superman-pajamas spoof and the episode ends to some dumb song (but you can buy the CD on the CW.com)

Clark (a.k.a. weeny-boy – see right) wrestles with the fact that Doomsday has a human side (Davis), and humans are all good.  Of course he’s come up against hundreds of human baddies over the past eight seasons, but whatever. Clark has been whining forever that he can save Davis and proves once again the depths of his weenitude.

Clark Rendered Inept… Again

So Green Lantern and his super-turd friends shoot Clark with a Krypto-dart.  Of course! Predictable and boring.

This time it’s Jimmy Olsen that saves him and learns that Clark is the Red-Blue-Blur.  What does that mean? Time to die, Jimmy!  Yep, Jimmy dies.  Stupid.  Even dumber, at his funeral Chloe walks up to a crying kid and says “You must be Jimmy’s younger brother.”

Time out… wasn’t she married to Jimmy?  YES. And you are telling me that she never met his family?  Stupid.  Chloe hands the kid a camera and tells him he may follow in the dead Jimmy’s footsteps.  Is that foreshadowing???

And this kid is supposed to be the Jimmy Olsen in the movies.  How does that work?  Were his parents dumb enough to name him Jimmy, too?  Or does this 8 year old kid take his older brother’s name to honor him now that he’s dead?

Crappy Ending. I’ll Skip Next Season

Clark ends the show by telling Chloe it is his human side, his emotions, that cause the problems.  Then he says goodbye and walks out.

I’ve never been this disgusted with a TV show.  It’s probably why I don’t watch much TV.  The only good outcome is that I’ll have less TV to watch in the fall.

Popularity: 39% [?]

(not a joke… seriously)

You’ve probably bought weird things in the past, but I am now budgeting to buy Fox Urine on a regular basis.

The story isn’t near as interesting as the post title, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately.

My house is close to the edge of town and backs up to a yet undeveloped city park, and over the winter I had a rabbit infestation.  There were times that I would flip on my backyard light and see over a dozen of these little critters jumping around my grass.  It’s caused a lot of problems.

Last summer, I had a perfect backyard.  My dog and I would play ball and roll around in the grass.  I could walk barefoot around the entire yard with no problem.

But all of these rabbits have been running around in the wild getting all sorts of week seeds in their coat.  They also eat all sorts of plants, seeds included.  But the seeds don’t digest very well.  So every time they take a little bunny hop, seeds fall out of their fur.  Every time they crap (and the crap a LOT), they leave seeds behind covered in their own fertilizer coating.

This summer, I haven’t walked outside barefoot because I have no desire to step on weeds – some of them are a little prickly – not to mention the rabbit pellets they have left for me.  My dog doesn’t want to play ball, and instead runs around the fence with her nose to the ground.  She’d love to catch a yummy rabbit.  It’s unfortunate that we are enjoying the yard much less so far this season.

Basically, if I was six inches tall, my backyard would be a scary jungle rainforest.  It would be a horror version of Honey I Shrunk the Kids.

After talking with a few people, I learned that I could sprinkle my yard with fox urine the natural instincts of the rabbits would take over and fear of being fox lunch would keep them away.  So a month ago I made a trip to the feed store and picked up a bottle.

The stuff stinks.  It is worse than six hours after eating asparagus.  But I got through it and sprinkled it in the half-dozen places where I have seen rabbits coming under my fence.

It worked immediately.

I haven’t seen a single rabbit since my fox urination. So I’ve added fox urine to my periodic shopping list for yard care.  You can find it here for $25.99 per bottle.  I’m planning on putting it down about once per month because rain and sprinklers will eventually wash it away, and based on my first use I expect to need a new bottle after every three uses or so.

So that’s about $100 a year for fox urine.  But that’s cheaper than re-weeding each year to the extent that I am doing now.

Currently I’m putting down weed-n-feed to begin nursing my yard back to health.  Maybe by mid-summer my dog and I can begin enjoying the back yard again.  Here are a few pics of the dog from last summer.  See how nice the grass was:

Popularity: 31% [?]

I went to the Fort Worth Gun Show on Saturday with my brother in laws.  They went to get some ammunition, but I was there to research what handgun I wanted to buy when I get my conceal and carry license in the near future.  I bought my wife a Bersa .380 a few years ago, but I wanted a larger round.

I’ve done a lot of reading about a CCW gun, and based on suggestions from a number of well written reviews, my top brand I was seeking was a Kahr handgun – specifically the 9mm and .40 models.  I’ve shot a number of different handguns, including several 9mm and .40s in the past, but I’ve never shot a Kahr of any caliber.  So that was my goal: find a Kahr and see how it fit my hand.

Gun Show Fun

I love gun shows.  There are so many people walking around with rifles, pistols, and even automatic weapons.  Even while we were going in, there were even some guys with double barrel shotguns walking up and down the sidewalk.  Isn’t Texas great?

There were more people here than I expected.  I’ve never seen this many people at a gun show before.  It was not uncommon to move just a couple of feet before having a dozen people pass by before you could go any further.

We started off at a couple of ammunition tables.  My brother in laws bought rounds for a .45, 9mm and 30-6.  I was looking at the knife tables because I lost my good Kershaw knife a year ago and I’m still looking for a suitable replacement.

We saw this poster and had a good laugh:

Kahr Evaluation

It took me a while to find some vendors with any Kahrs at all.  Out of dozens of vendors selling handguns, I only saw four tables that had a Kahr, and only one of those had the CW9.

There were two main types of Kahr handguns out for display: the PM and the CW series.  I determined immediately that I am not a fan of the PM series.  It’s just too small for my taste.  First of all, the bottom of my palm stuck out below the grip.  And even with a conceal and carry weapon, I want to put as much of my hand on it as I can for stability and control.  If I were to carry one of these in my pocket, then the PM may be a very good choice.  But I plan to wear either a belt holster or a SOB holster.  (That stands for small of back, not the other SOB.)

On the other hand, the CW series felt great.  The grip is just long enough to be comfortable, and if I get the mag with clip extension, I’ll have more than enough room.  Both the 9mm and .40 felt about the same so it really comes down to a decision.  Do I want the 9mm or the .40?

The Big Decision

I’m convinced and will definitely buy a either a CW9 or CW40 Kahr sometime in the near future.  Since Sunday I’ve considered the pros and cons to make a decision.  Here’s my breakdown:

• Cost of Gun – I saw both guns for about the same price. No points awarded
• Ammunition Cost – I’ll need to do a good amount of practice shooting with a brand new gun to get used to it and to break it in properly.  That means I will be buying a lot of ammo (maybe even a couple hundred rounds before the gun is fully broken in).  So the lower priced 9mm ammo is a definite advantage here.  Score 1 9mm
• Kickback – this gun is a little smaller than most handguns, so I am thinking that a little less kickback will probably help with comfort and control.  Score 2 9mm
• # of Rounds – the .40 holds 6 in the clip, and 9mm holds 7.  I can add one more if I get the extended mag, but that still leaves 1 more for the CW9.  Score 3 9mm
• Stopping Power – There’s no argument that the .40 will have more stopping power.  BUT… I’ve read that if I use the right rounds, there’s not going to be a noticeable difference.  And when it comes down to it, it’s more about shot placement than stopping power.  If anyone is coming at me and I have to use this gun in defense, I plan on emptying the clip.  If eight 9mm rounds doesn’t stop someone, than I doubt seven .40 rounds would either.  No points awarded

So the choice is the 9mm.  I hope to buy this in a few weeks, and I’ll post my initial impressions after I have a chance to shoot it a time or two.

Check ya later.

Popularity: 79% [?]

A couple of months ago I told you how bad DirecTV sucks.  Well, they still suck and here’s more proof.

DirecTV’s Lame Attempts to Keep a Customer

So after I canceled my account, they called back about 7 times that first week offering me some lame deal – half off the basic price for TV service for 12 months.  The catch was I would still have to pay all the extra fees and crap they charged me which pissed me off in the first place.

Every time they called, I told them I would accept no less than this deal:

• I would pay 1/2 off their basic service
• Free upgrade to their best service
• Free HD service (normally an extra $10.month)
• Free additional boxes (normally an additional $5/month)
• Free movie channels (an additional $7-$21/month)
• They would guarantee this price to me for two years, not one, because I had been a customer of theirs for two years up to this point
• And to top it off, I told them they would have to refund the $300 I paid them for the HD box the “leased” to me.

From what I understand, DirecTV has been losing customers left and right, but they would still be insane to agree to my terms.  On each call, they tried to tell me that their original offer was a great deal. “No.” They may could wave one of the additional box fees. “No.” They didn’t have the authority to make that decision. “The stop wasting my time.”

My favorite was the last guy who, after I refused to negotiate, said “Unfortunately we won’t be able to keep you as a customer”

I responded, “That’s only unfortunate for you.”

I think I finally annoyed them enough because I haven’t had a call from them in almost two months.

DirecTV’s Incompetance … Again

So after they finally canceled my account and returned my receiver boxes, I had $8.43 in service fees that needed to be paid because I canceled 1-2 days into the new billing cycle.  I actually received a bill with this amount on it.  I’m a firm believer in paying what you own (even if the company completely screws you over and sucks in all other possible ways) so I called in and paid with my card to get it over and done with.

But this past month, I saw a charge to my bank account for $13.78, and then three days later I received another bill from DirecTV detailing those charges, but it was already paid.  What?

After reviewing this bill, I found that it was for three movies we rented in 2008.  That’s crap because the charge is supposed to be on the monthly bill that you rent the movie in.  And they went ahead and charged my card for it without telling me?  So I called to deal with these jokers one more time.

The idiot from DirecTV told me that for some reason they were unable to apply the charges on the bill because our receiver would not communicate with DirecTV at the time we rented the movies.  Instead, they had to manyally download the charges from the account card in my receiver after I returned the boxes.  When I asked why, he said because we probably didn’t have a phone line plugged into the back of the receiver.

Wait a minute, you can’t rent a movie without a phone line plugged into the back of the receiver!  Of course we had a phone line plugged in, because the fact that we rented movies proves it.

It wasn’t my fault their crap didn’t work – and here’s another example of them screwing up and asking me to pay for it.  No intelligible response from this genius, so I told him he needed to refund the amount.

He refused.

Some of you may say that I should have paid it because I rented the movies.  Well,

• It would already be paid if DirecTV’s crap worked anywhere near the way they say it does.
• I would have paid it if they called and told me about the charge first (call, email, send the bill first).
• I would have paid it if they hadn’t already sent me a “final bill” for $8.43 the previous month.

But to charge my card, without authorization, after I am no longer a customer, for something that should have been paid the previous year is ridiculous.

Credit Card Dispute to the Rescue

So I called up my bank, and for the first time ever I disputed a credit card charge.  It was for only $13.78, but I did it more out of principle than the money.  DirecTV, you just don’t pull that crap with your customers.  Oh, you DO pull that crap, but you shouldn’t.

DirecTV, go suck a fart.

Popularity: 46% [?]